Wealth
|system=Achernar System |stars=*Achernar α *Achernar β |moons=*Armstrong *Obwan |satellites= |rotation=27 hours |orbit=266 years |diameter=11,491 kilometres (7,140.1 miles) |terrain=*Largely oceanic *Desert islands with oasis *Many mountains and craters |gravity=0.972 |temperature=-17°C to 52°C (1.4°F to 115°F) |climate=5 Seasons *Two humid and hot summers *Two warm, semi-wet intermediate seasons *A coolish, dry winter |atmosphere=0.7 *76% N2 *24% O2 and O3 *>1% Other Gases (H2O, Ar) |species=*Humans |technology tier=3 |government= |population=*98,258,148 (2550 Census) |demonym=Wealthian |continents= |countries= |cities=*Utyugrad |industries=*Shipbuilding *Mining *Technology Development *Agriculture |affiliation=* **CMA * **Wealthian Coalition }} Wealth, designated as Achernar II and formerly known as Outbound, was a colony founded beyond the borders of human-controlled space. Established in 2484, most of the planet's population were made up primarily of Russians and Greeks immigrating from the to relieve the growing overpopulation problems occurring there. Discovering the world was surprisingly well-suited to human habitation, Wealth quickly became a model world of sorts for the Outer Colonies. Because of its position and its natural resources, Wealth would become home to many different industries including mining and technological development. Because of this and the many offers to migrate here, its population boomed very quickly, already reaching a far higher population than most planets within the Outer Colony region within a decade of its founding. Ultimately, a combination of the beliefs of its inhabitants and its isolation resulted in its colonists becoming an early voice for self-governance and independence. Early violent cells appeared not long after the bombing of , because the incident portrayed the UNSC as violent oppressors. The CMA led a destructive campaign at first, but slowly eased off as their officers began to sympathise with the , and even opened negotiations with the rebels to discuss a potential agreement that could allow both parties to benefit from an independent colony. Those negotiations came to a quick and decisive end with a UNSC fleet's arrival in 2509, and which began the so-called Insurrection of Outbound. Over the two-decade war, both the UNSC and the rebels suffered significant casualties and destruction of property, so far that some called it the most bloodiest campaign of the Insurrection. It finally became independent when the UNSC virtually abandoned the Outer Colonies in the 2530s. In a gesture signifying the good-fortunes which occurred, the government renamed the planet to Wealth, and quickly went about building up their own choice of industries and military forces. History Discovery Located more than one hundred lightyears from Earth, the Archernar system has long been ruled out as a potential colonial site. As its rapid rotational period was theorised to destroy any significant body early on, the blue super-giant's dangerous radiation would have bathed planets to the point that they would've been uninhabitable. While its unusual properties attracted some interest in astronomers, who intensely studied it in an effort to unravel its mysteries, no signatures which point to an orbital planet were ever discovered. That is, until the system was accidentally surveyed by an independent group of traders in 2419. On an incident blamed on incorrect coordinate calculations, the crew of the agricultural freighter Classical Times spent nearly two years in slipspace. When they finally slipped out, they were surprised to discover that they did not jump into a star or other rogue astronomical body, but instead very close to a supposedly-new system. They discovered two previously-unknown planets, one of them proved to have sufficient gravity and atmosphere to house a stable human colony. When they returned, they were immediately attacked by the educated inhabitants of the scientific community. Those already familiar with the system couldn't believe that such large rocky bodies could exist undetected for so long, arguing that the freighter's navigational data wasn't kept up-to-date and resulted in it ending up in one of the neighbouring systems instead. Such evidence supporting this was that the travel time starting from should have been much longer, and that the Classical Times' cameras only recorded a single A-type star within its field-of-view. Even when they were all finally proven wrong when a probe arrived at Archernar-II in 2424 and recorded all the same observations the freighter made years prior, the planet was still a serious topic of debate in scientific community for decades later. Colonisation In the decades after Achernar's planets were discovered, developments in slipspace and terraforming technology increased in leaps and bounds. Where it once took almost a week to travel a single lightyear, current slipspace drives could now travel two or more lightyears in just a day. Despite these advancements, humanity's private sector was truly revolutionised when the UEG Senate passed several critical bills which reduced taxes and changed some major laws. Dozens, if not hundreds of new, specialised companies were formed to take advantage of these changes, and while many followed the guidelines to success very closely, some pushed on to new horizons; one of the latter companies was Citi-Start. The terraforming subsidiary of the Dormant Corporation, Citi-Start was formed in hopes of giving their parent company total monopoly by directly manipulating the colonial governments on the planets they founded. After considering several other candidates across multiple systems, the executives chose Archernar-II as the testing ground for their bureaucratic and urban development techniques. As the planet was, in its normal state, dangerous to unprotected human colonists, an expedition carried by the Harmonious Kingship was sent to begin terraforming procedures. While setting up immense magnetic field generators and preparing to introduce gases designed to absorb or reflect Archernar's dangerous EM-rays, the crew discovered the planet had an abundance of alien sea-life, whose cell structures were unlike any other life form throughout the rest of human space. This stalled progress for a time, as a qualified microbiologist was forced to oversee the remaining colonisation process. Unfortunately, by the time precautions for bacterial infection were in place, it was too late; the Kingship had introduced its own "harmless" bacteria the moment it landed. While most of the bacteria died soon after thanks exposure to the star's gamma- and X-ray emissions, the little that did escape into the planet's oceans quickly multiplied and mutated into forms toxic to the native biosphere. This unfortunate event further delayed the planet's planned colonisation, with the few scientists knowing about the event pressured Dormant to construct a dedicated facility for housing and studying its native life. The entire process was kept under wraps, and it was only in 2505 that Dormant lifted its media blackout over what had happened. It took three years before the terraforming process would be resumed, when Citi-Start could no longer delay the planned colonisation any further. Even with the new anti-bacterial measures employed, the process moved remarkably quickly and was completed in 2482. With all preparations in place, Citi-Start finally sent the first of the three colony ships, the Great Depression, which arrived during 2484. Unfortunately, the delay did not assure the colonists, with only half of the 6,500 originally prebooking following through on Outbound remained a stable agricultural world, though it wasn't until after the second migration fleet arrived in 2489 that the planet began to achieve prominence. Dormant invested heavily in the planet's industries, and they would eventually employ more than a third of the population at its peak. It would quickly establish a number of remote research laboratories, and became home to hundreds of scientists. Open Rebellion While appearing as a highly successful colony which informed how to properly develop new colonies, in truth the situation was far from peaceful. Relations The Wealthians never had any appreciation of being members of a galactic power, save for an economic alliance which had no real government. That reason stemmed from the treatment they received from the UNSC. Peaceful political strikes turned violent after rumours began to circulate of the UNSC bombing entire worlds to suppress rebellions. The long conflict on Wealth was far more destructive than those on other colonies in the region, as the UNSC is interested in securing the large R&D facilities constructed there or destroying the products they create. Due to this, it's no secret that the Wealthians often serve in other rebel factions, and even the government secretly supports the branch established there. Political Relationship: Hostile Culture Demographics Languages Originating from the original nationality of its colonists, Wealth originally only had a very small amount of spoken languages, which remained displayed as their national languages. English was seen as the business language due to the pushing of the UNSC, and most could speak. Though suspected to be the most widely-used language by the uninformed, slavic-based Russian was believe it or not the most spoken language on the planet. Due to the colonist's hatred of the UNSC, many abandoned it when the UNSC left, adopting it as the national language. In fact, the only natives who spoke English were often ex-UNSC personnel, and many respected and feared them because of it. The only other major language was Greek, spoken on the continent of Zeus. Due to the threat of being attacked by gangs or mafia-related groups, there was a very low migration rate for the Wealthians as they preferred to band together to support each other in times of need. Because of this, just about each town and city displayed different slang in extreme cases, accents. For example, inhabitants of the planetary capital tended to speak with a proper accent to help new visitors understand them, and many there also spoke English. Rural areas, meanwhile, were subject to desperate conditions which forced them to act quickly in crises, often spat out and cut through words to communicate more rapidly. Politics Religion Though language often formed the barriers in the population, the few religions which came to the planet meant that it divided many of the original colonists further. The largest of those was the , where converts believed that one inhabits three lives before going on to enlightenment. It was influential to the point that both the moons of Wealth were named after major priests, Antonio Obwan and Visarys Armstrong. Military & Armed Groups Originally, Wealth was only home to a small made up largely of volunteers to police the planet, but that quickly changed within a decade of colonisation. As well as a sizable CMA and UNSC garrison previously established, Wealth was also home to a number of resistance groups and gangs who were largely united in their goal to overwhelm the planet from the UNSC's grasp. Thanks to the research labs and the few manufacturing facilities on the surface and in its system, both were well-supplied to continue fighting each other. Fighting between each other was frighteningly common and destructive, but surprisingly the UNSC caused the largest share of property damage and "civilian cross-fire casualties", so it was understandable that the civilians held a deep hatred of the UNSC. After the planet was abandoned by the UNSC, a massive political renaissance occurred on Wealth. Much like , much of the surface was separated into independently-governed countries, and maintained their own military forces. Conflict was removed entirely due to a constitution which essentially turned the planet into an united alliance: if one country was threatened, others were expected to send troops to aid in the country. Though some countries worked hard to push these out, other nations had very lax laws on the creation of military groups and gangs, and some even profited off these groups. Government Military Administrated by the planetary nations via the Wealthian Evaluation Summit, the Wealthian Coalition is the single organisation charged with protecting the Wealthian's interests and enforcing border control. The Coalition's strength is based around fleet superiority and has little in the area of ground forces, with the exception of its Marine Corps. Instead, the Coalition requests such forces from individual nations, who can deny loans without much backlash. Internally, the organisation's ships are divided into two commands; the Department of Spacelane Security (DSS) and the Department of Territorial Defence (DTD). The DSS is essentially the police force, and occupies the largest share of forces. Its job is to defend merchant and civilian vessels from pirates, though secondary functions are emergency assist and disaster relief. Because of this, they utilise smaller corvettes and frigates, and rarely have the capacity to go against larger warships. Instead, the fleet was supposed to suppress their foe with sheer numbers or pull back and warn the DTD of the incoming threat. Ironically, at the end of the Human-Covenant War, the DSS was known for selling their older ships, such as , to rebel sympathisers to rearm them against the UNSC. The DTD, on the other hand, is a conventional defence force who had better-quality ships to use in planetary defence roles. Originally, this was only extended to Wealth's industrial centres within the Achernar System, so the fleet was expected to operate with a peak of only fourteen vessels. Their older ships were the few stolen UNSC warships, but over the decades managed to replace those entirely with their own designs. Their naval obscurity has prevent the UNSC from launching an attack until ONI can retrieve information on their naval strength and makeup. Ranks and Organisation Industry Aqua-Culture Manufacturing Mining Research & Development Geography Surface Appearance A typical colony world, Wealth's surface is distinguished by its nine archipelagos scattered in a circular formation around five large continental mainlands, although these include the icy regions around its north and south poles. With the exception of the continent of Zeus, every mainland region is positioned above the earthquake-prone fault lines in the crust. The effect of these earthquakes on the planet's lithosphere are responsible for the reason why the centre of major islands and continental landmasses are far lower than sea-level; because many of the islands have a honeycomb-like structure, even moderate levels of tension can cause the crust to collapse. This has also left deep caverns in the landscape, along with numerous sinkholes in swampy areas. Climate Lithosphere Biosphere Notes Category:UEG Outer Colonies